Now he walked slowly around the camp, checking that weapons were placed in such a way that they could be easily taken up, that the men were not insensible with drink, that there was no chance of fire reaching the ships pulled up on the beach.
He looked out over the water toward where Blood Hawk and her cargo of future slaves lay at anchor. He had hoped to ransom them, not sell them, but the English had sent an army rather than the one hundred pounds of silver promised, and so slaves they would be. Thorgrim had put off leaving in hopes that the ransom might still come through, but he had abandoned that hope. On the morrow they would begin loading the ships for sea.
He walked on and he pretended to himself that his path was aimless, a random night inspection of the longphort and its defenses, but he knew it was not true. And soon he found himself walking past heaps of sleeping men, great lumps of wool and fur, hair and weapons just visible in the low light of the dying bonfire and the sliver of moon overhead. The crew of Sea Hammer, his own men.
Louis de Roumois was sleeping a little ways from the rest, under a light-colored wool blanket, which made it stand out in the dull light. Thorgrim wondered if the Northmen insisted that Louis sleep set apart, or if Louis, a haughty Frank and a Christian to boot, wished to keep his distance from the savage Northmen. The latter, Thorgrim suspected.
He paused for a moment and looked down at Louis’s prone form hidden by the blanket. He looked away and took a step and he heard Louis’s whispered voice say, “She’s not here.”
“What?” Thorgrim asked, also speaking soft, not wishing to disturb the others, not wishing them to know he was there. He saw Louis toss the blanket aside and sit up.
“If you look for Failend, she’s not here.”
Thorgrim felt his face flush and it made him angry. “I’m not looking for anyone. I’m seeing to the defenses. It’s what I do.”
“Mmm,” Louis said, noncommittally. He kicked the blankets off the rest of the way and stood, stretching his arms. “I can’t sleep either,” he said. “Damned English. I wish they’d do something. Leave, attack, I don’t care. Just stop sitting on their fat asses looking at us.”
“Yes,” Thorgrim said. It occurred to him that Louis had become very fluent in the Norse language. His accent was odd, but the words came to him nearly as well as they did to one raised to that tongue. The result of living and sailing and fighting beside heathens for as long as he had.
“I’m done waiting,” Thorgrim said.
“Will we attack them?” Louis asked. It was just a question, with no hint of whether Louis would approve of such a thing or be frightened by it. But Thorgrim had fought side by side with Louis often enough now that he did not think the man would fear battle. His feelings for the Frank were fluid, more so than his feelings for almost any other man he had known. Thorgrim tended to see men as black or white, good or bad. But with Louis, Thorgrim wanted sometimes to embrace him and sometimes to run a sword through his gut.
“No reason to attack,” Thorgrim said. “We’ve taken everything to be had in this place. We’d just be killing and dying to no end. No, we’ll load the ships and be off to sea. Sell the prisoners in Frisia. Where you can find a ship to Frankia and we’ll be free of you.”
“And I of you, and I’ll thank the Lord for it,” Louis said, but there was no malice in his voice. They stood for a moment, looking out into the dark, then Louis said, “You came looking for Failend?”
Thorgrim opened his mouth to deny it, then closed his mouth, thought about what he would say. There was no point in lying, just as there was no point in attacking the English.
“Yes. She’s not been in my bed for many nights now.”
“Nor mine,” Louis said. “Not since we joined with you fine fellows.”
“I didn’t think she was in your bed,” Thorgrim said. “But you’re quick to deny it. Are you afraid you’ll make me angry?”
Louis made a grunt of a laugh. “No, I’m not afraid,” he said. “I just won’t have my honor questioned. Or hers.”
Thorgrim was not sure how to take that. “You think I’m questioning Failend’s honor?”
“No,” Louis said. “As far as I can see you’ve treated her honorably. If there were mistakes made, it was Failend who made them. It’s her responsibility.”
“What mistakes has she made?” Thorgrim asked. This was not the sort of conversation he was accustomed to having, and he wondered if he would speak this way to one of his fellow Northmen. He did not think so. But somehow with the foreigner, Louis, it was different.
As to Failend’s mistakes, Thorgrim figured he knew the answer, or at least what Louis would say. Failend had embraced the ways of the Northmen, from their language to their dress to their desire for battle. A Frank, and Christian, like Louis would certainly see that as a grave mistake indeed.
“Her mistake was falling in love with you,” Louis said.
That was not what Thorgrim had expected. He frowned and stared out toward the water. “You think she’s in love with me?”
“Of course she is!” Louis said. “By God, you’re a blockhead. You don’t see it?”
Thorgrim was caught between his surprise and his desire to reprimand Louis for calling him a blockhead, reprimand him in a very physical way, but the surprise won out.
“No, I guess I didn’t see it…” Thorgrim said and even as the words came out he could hear how stupid they were. He had been so long out of the company of women that he could hardly recall how they thought and felt. And even before that he had been nearly twenty years married to Hallbera and he had never had to wonder about her love or loyalty. With Failend he had just floated along, never giving a thought to her feelings about him. But now she seemed to him foreign and odd, a mysterious being with whom he could not communicate, just as she had when she had first been taken prisoner.
“So what is she thinking now?” Thorgrim asked, and he could see Louis shrug.
“It’s not for me to say.”
“Say it anyway,” Thorgrim growled.
“Well, I think at first she could tolerate loving you, even if you did not love her in return. Now? I think she’s afraid she’s wasting her time. That nothing will come of this. It hasn’t been easy for her, you know, leaving Ireland. It’s all she knew. She tries to believe she’s taken on a new life with you heathens, but she hasn’t, not as much as she thinks.”
“She’s told you all this?” Thorgrim asked. He was not comfortable with the thought of Failend sharing such intimacies with Louis and not with him, and that discomfort surprised him.
“She’s told me some,” Louis said. “Mostly I can just see it in her. What she does, what she says. How she reacts. You can hear these things if you listen. And you’re not a blockhead of a heathen.”
Again Thorgrim was caught between his surprise and the notion that he should not let Louis’s words go by without a response, and this time he opted for a response. But even as his hand was lifting to grab Louis’s throat he heard footsteps running, a soft, padding sound on the trampled ground.
“Father! Father, there you are!” Harald appeared in the dull light of the dying flames.
Thorgrim lowered his hand. “Harald?”
Harald stopped a few feet away and Thorgrim could see he was sweating and breathing hard. “I’ve been all over looking for you,” he said. “You weren’t asleep and you weren’t by the fire…”
“Yes, ” Thorgrim said, “I know where I wasn’t. Why are you looking for me?”
“The sentries, on the wall,” Harald said. “They tell me they heard something, something going on out there.” He pointed vaguely toward the wall, in the direction of the village beyond.
“Come,” Thorgrim said. He knew it was pointless to try to get anything more from Harald, so he hurried toward the nearest ladder with Harald and Louis following.
He scrambled up the ladder and back on top of the wall. The sentry there took a step toward them and Thorgrim saw that it was Hall, who was crew on his own ship, Se
a Hammer.
“There,” Hall said, pointing out into the dark, and he had sense enough to say nothing more. Thorgrim cocked his head and strained to hear. At first there was nothing, and then, as his ears grew used to the quiet, he began to hear it. There was a soft, muffled undercurrent of noise, like the combination of men moving about and speaking softly and every once in a while the quiet clink of two hard things hitting one another. It was not much, but certainly more noise than they were accustomed to hearing from the enemy’s camp so late at night.
Thorgrim turned to Hall. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long,” Hall said. “I first heard something halfway through this watch. I listened for a bit before I thought it was worth calling you.”
Thorgrim nodded. He turned to Harald and Louis. “Well?”
“Sounds like a lot of men, doing something,” Harald offered.
Thorgrim hesitated, just a beat, and then said, “Well, Louis, what do you think?”
“I agree with Harald,” he said. “That’s not the sound of a camp asleep. Whatever they’re doing they’re trying to be quiet about it. But an army can only be so quiet.”
Thorgrim turned to Hall. “Go find Starri and have him join me here. Harald, go spread the word for the men to wake and get under arms. Find Jorund and Godi. Have them help. Tell them to be quiet, no noise, no talking. If those bastards over there are going to attack, it’s better they think we’re not prepared.”
The two men nodded and raced off as fast as they could along the precarious wall. Louis and Thorgrim stood side by side looking off into the dark.
“There are no fires,” Louis said.
“What?”
“Every night we look out, we see some fires in the English camp. Cook fires or lanterns or something. Some light. Now, nothing.”
“Hmm,” Thorgrim said. Louis was right. No fires at all. There had been earlier, he recalled, and generally they would see a few fires burning all night. But now the fires were gone. Which you would expect from an army trying to hide its movements, because even low fires cast light.
Then they heard the thud of something heavy hitting the ground followed by a horse’s whinny.
“I better go get my own weapons,” Louis said and he disappeared down the ladder. Thorgrim continued to look into the darkness that hid the open ground and the enemy on the other side. He heard the creak of the ladder behind him. He turned, expecting to see Starri, but instead he saw Failend stepping awkwardly onto the wall, her arms full of something.
“I brought you this,” Failend said, and Thorgrim, now listening to her words with care, thought he heard a touch of uncertainty, a touch of contrition. But perhaps it was something else.
He looked down at her arms. She held his mail shirt, as well as Iron-tooth and his belt and seax. “I can go fetch your shield, if you like,” she said. “I couldn’t carry it with the rest.”
“No, thank you,” Thorgrim said. He took the mail shirt and slipped it over his head. Failend was already wearing her mail. She had her seax, the weapon he had given her more than a year before, hanging from her belt, and her bow and arrows over her shoulder.
Next Thorgrim took up his sword belt and buckled it around his waist. “I’ll get my shield if I think I need it,” he said. He settled Iron-tooth in place and then there was a silence between them, and not one that was particularly comfortable.
“Thank you, Failend, for bringing my sword and such. I’m not sure what’s going on out there…” Thorgrim began because he could think of no other place to begin. He was searching for the next thing to say when the scene was happily interrupted by Starri Deathless flying up the ladder and out onto the wall, his two battle axes thrust into his belt.
“Are they attacking, Night Wolf?” he asked in a loud whisper. His hand reached for the arrowhead that he wore on a cord around his neck and he rubbed it between thumb and forefinger as if that charm might bring the enemy forward.
“No, not attacking,” Thorgrim said. “Not yet. I need your ears.” He pointed out into the dark. “Listen, tell me what you hear.”
Starri cocked his head and leaned forward a bit. It was harder to hear now, with several hundred Northmen rousting themselves from sleep and making ready for battle, and no matter how hard they tried they could not be terribly quiet. But Starri seemed completely absorbed in listening and seemed to not even notice the muted din behind him.
At last he nodded and said, “There’s a lot of men moving around. They’re talking low. I can hear horses and mail jingling. And footsteps.”
“What are they doing?” Failend asked.
“Moving around,” Starri said. “Other than that, I can’t tell.”
Thorgrim nodded. For Starri that was a surprisingly rational conclusion. “Keep listening,” Thorgrim said. “Failend, come with me.” He climbed down the ladder and Failend followed and Thorgrim wondered why he had told Failend to come. He had no task in mind for her. But somehow it did not seem right to abandon her on the wall. He felt like he had abandoned her enough already.
By the remains of the fire, Thorgrim saw Jorund gathering the men who had formerly sailed under his command and who still looked to him as their leader. He could see Godi a little ways off, looming over the others. He turned to Failend.
“Would you go find Harald and Asmund, Halldor, all the captains and tell them to come join us here?”
Failend nodded, turned and raced off. Thorgrim pushed his way through the men to Jorund’s side.
“Thorgrim! What’s going on?” Jorund asked, his voice in a whisper.
“Not sure,” Thorgrim said. “Some activity with the English army. An attack, maybe. We had better be ready.”
Jorund nodded, and in a moment Failend returned with the other men in tow. Thorgrim waved them over and they formed a circle.
“I was just telling Jorund,” Thorgrim said. “The English are… doing something. We can’t tell what. But they might be making ready to attack. They’re being quiet about it, to be certain. So here’s what we’ll do. Each of you take command of your ship’s crews. Keep a few men on top of the wall but most hidden behind. There we’ll have a man with an unlit torch every ten feet or so, and a flame, hidden from sight, ready to light the torches. If we see them coming, we wait until they’re nearly on the wall, then on my command the torches get lit and thrown over the wall. That’ll light them up and we’ll kill them as they come over. Understand?”
Heads nodded all around the circle.
“Any questions?” There were none, so Thorgrim sent the men off to get the crews of their ships arrayed behind the wall. He and Failend and Harald climbed back up on top of the wall where Starri was still listening. He looked as if he had not moved even the tiniest bit.
“If those drunken buffoons behind me would make less of a racket I could hear more,” Starri said without being asked. “But things have changed over there, I can hear that much. The noise has picked up. Whatever they’re up to, they’re busier at it now.”
“Good,” Thorgrim said. He hoped they would not take too long, whatever they were doing. He knew that the waiting was always the worst. It was the thing that wore men’s spirits down.
He turned and looked anxiously behind him. Much as he wanted the English to attack soon, he did not want them to attack too soon. If they came out of the night just then, with the Northmen still sorting themselves out, they could be up and over the wall before any defense was in place.
For some time they remained like that, on top of the wall, Thorgrim swiveling between facing the English and looking behind to mark the progress of his own men. It was not long before he could see his people gathered behind the wall below him, and he guessed that the others were in place as well, standing ready with torches and with weapons and a rising blood-lust.
Very well, Thorgrim thought, Very well, you English bastards, you can come any time now…
But the English did not come. Still Thorgrim and the others listened, still they looke
d out into the dark, and still they could detect no sign of an attack. The stars wheeled overhead, the moon sunk toward the horizon, and no battle was joined. Behind him, and along the wall, Thorgrim could sense the sharp edge of the men’s readiness start to dull as the night rolled by, quiet and uneventful.
His legs grew weary and he wanted very much to sit, but he knew he could not, though some of the men on the ground behind him were now planted on their hind-ends. He found his eyes starting to shut and he paced back and forth a bit.
In the east, the sky began to grow pale.
“Oh, come on, you bastards, come on!” Starri shouted out toward the English camp. In his frustration he did not even bother to speak softly. Thorgrim looked behind him and down. Half the men waiting behind the wall were asleep.
The sky grew lighter, and more and more of the village revealed itself. And then, finally, there was gray light enough for them to see clear to the village, and what they saw was not what they had expected.
The evening before there had been tents and sentries, banners and horses and hundreds of men moving about the camp, and wagons further back in the town, but now there was nothing. Just a village, nothing more, with no sign that an army had ever been there at all.
Thorgrim smiled. “You remember, Harald, how we laughed to see the English attack the monastery? After we had abandoned it for this longphort?”
“Yes, Father,” Harald said.
“Well, it seems they have played a trick of their own.”
Chapter Seventeen
[I]t was determined that tribute should be paid to the Danish men
because of the great terror they were causing along the coast.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Oswin, shire reeve of Dorset, spent some long moments wondering if there was some crucial point he had forgotten. The most obvious question: was he in the right place? He thought back to his last time there, when he had brought Cynewise’s request to Nothwulf that he attend her.
Kings and Pawns Page 17
